Storm's Coming

Storm's Coming

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 has been winning rave reviews all over and if you haven’t yet checked out our full review of NVIDIA’s awesome new card, you can do so here. And now, just a mere week after its launch, custom design versions of the GeForce GTX 460 are already appearing.

One of the earliest custom design GeForce GTX 460 to hit the market has to be the MSI N460GTX Cyclone. The card gets its name from the specially-designed Cyclone cooler, which was first seen on MSI's Radeon HD 4890 cards. Also, the N460GTX Cyclone will be available in both 1GB and 768MB versions. The one we have here today is the 768MB version.

The cooler retains its trademark odd-shaped design, which, to us, resembles a winged insect more than a cyclone. In any case, MSI dubs this the “Cyclone Thermal Design” and the most notable thing about it is that it features a large 90mm fan for better airflow. The cooler also has a nickel-plated copper heatsink core for better heat dissipation. And its rounded design it said to be better at keeping out dust.

The card also comes with the usual assortment of what MSI calls “Military Class Components”. This includes Hi-C Caps for better voltage regulation and solid state chokes for longer operating lifespan and enhanced overclocking performance.

Lastly, to complement the Cyclone cooler and military class components, the MSI N460GTX Cyclone is also factory overclocked. Although memory clock speeds remain unchanged, the core has been bumped up to 728MHz and 1455 MHz at the shaders - an increase of 53MHz and 105 MHz respectively.